Joplin: UI for links between notes

[maphew]

Building on #134, it would be great to have a Links Between Notes user interface

I love that linking between notes is possible but it's awkward. One needs to find the note in the doc tree and then _copy>>paste_ it's markdown link. As the note trove grows this becomes a lengthier and lengthier exercise.

This workflow is loads better than nothing or copying full URLs, but the experience could be a lot smoother: I imagine a find-as-you-type search bar of Note Titles opening to [[ or a keyboard shortcut. (Optionally [[/, [[? to not interfere with [[I-want-to-type-without-that-thing-in-my-face]] UX)

Possibly a better implementation path that leverages an existing feature is a modified _Go to Anything_:

_Ctrl-P >> if first 2 chars [[ insert [[ + {found anything target} + ]] instead of Going To_

Operating system

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
  

Application

• Desktop
  

_I don't know what the equivalent mobile app UI control would be so I pulled them out of the list. However I'd think they would want a Links UI also. Feel free to add them back by editing this post._

[tessus]

@laurent22 I'm not sure, if you have seen this, but this seems like a good idea.

[tessus]

@laurent22 how easy or hard would that be to implement? if you have a few pointers, maybe I can start working on this.

[kleinfelter]

... or, when the user types [[note title here]] auto-replace it with note title here

[zznw]

Dragging the note from the doc tree into the source pane also works for me. Using version 1.0.161.

However, this is hard to do between different notebooks as the list of notes is only visible for the notebook whose page you are on.

[stale[bot]]

Hey there, it looks like there has been no activity on this issue recently. Has the issue been fixed, or does it still require the community's attention? This issue may be closed if no further activity occurs. You may also label this issue as "backlog" and I will leave it open. Thank you for your contributions.

[dudelson]

Note: this feature is being actively discussed in this forum thread and appears to be under consideration for GSoC 2020. If that's the case, perhaps we could tag this issue as GSoC as well?

[joshsweaney]

Well, since #2482 seemed to conclude this doesn't have to be a GSoC feature, somebody else might be able to start working on it. I would love this feature so may start on it myself if I get time. Unless somebody else has already begun work on it?

Building on the discussion in #2482 and here, the Github hinting of linked issues is very similar to what is being proposed. When you type # in a Github comment box (like the one at the bottom of this page!) you get a little autocomplete box with a list of matching issues (go ahead and type #2 in the comment box now) and you'll get exactly what is being proposed here, except it would be [[ and page names.

[laurent22]

Just one thing: as a first step I prefer if we simply create a menu item "Add note link" rather than the shortcut described above.

A Markdown link in Joplin can be a URL, a link to a resource or a link to a note and I'm not certain we should prioritise the link to note.

If we only make it a menu item then it's not an issue, and later we can think of how the shortcuts should work for links.

[joshsweaney]

Okay, that can work as a first step!

I think linking to a resource could be achieved in the same way, since you could search by resource name. And then in the autocomplete box, a different icon appears to the left of notes vs. resources. (Maybe an icon of a text file vs. an icon of an image).

[prurph]

It would also be really cool if you could automatically generate/see backlinks for notes (the notes that link to a given note). Should be pretty easy to do as it's just grepping for a given note's link.

[xabier]

@tessus do you know if there is any progress with this? I think it can really become a killer feature for all the mind-mapping and network analysis that can be carried out with notes if crosslinks are used. Also it helps navigate connected ideas without having to reduce the link to a tag.

[tessus]

Sorry, for some reason the notification email got lost in my Inbox.

I don't think there's any progress on this. We had GSoC which produced 2 great new features and the roadmap is focussed on a few features only. Bug fixing has a higher priority right now. There are 25 high priority issues that should be fixed first.

[omega3]

Obsidian has a great implementation of the idea of backlinks:
Obsidian - The Power of Backlinks and the Knowledge Graph - Effective Remote Work

[cristianvasquez]

What would be the effort needed to do something like Obsidian does? This feature is truly important

[S73ph4n]

I've made a little plugin to implement a similar feature which you might find useful :
https://github.com/S73ph4n/joplin_autolinker

[tessus]

This looks very much like https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/create-note-from-highlighted-text/12511

[S73ph4n]

Indeed. I should have googled more before writing this.